The Truth/Decluttering My Makeup Drawer

Satya – or truthfulness. It is what we have been concentrating on in my Yoga Teacher Training this month. I think I am a truthful person, but there is one part of my life that I don’t like anyone to know about. It is something that keeps me from having people over as much as I would like, and something that I am constantly ashamed of. This sounds like it must be something really horrible doesn’t it!? Well, the truth is my house is a mess; we live in what feels like constant clutter and I don’t seem to be able to get it truly under control! It doesn’t help that we have three little tornadoes running around, and not a single closet on the main floor of the house! We also do not have a usable basement as it is so old and damp, so we can’t even store anything down there (with the exception of a few Christmas decorations). I also have a habit of keeping just about everything, which I inherited from my father (you never know, that pretty piece of ribbon might just come in handy one day!).

My hope is that by being truthful about this, and coming to terms with it, I can look past it, and not allow it to get in the way of opening my home up to friends and family. Don’t get me wrong I am still going to continue to make an effort to tidy up and make my house presentable (I have not reached hoarder status yet!), but I am trying not to stress about how it looks to other people, because I don’t want it to get in the way of entertaining and welcoming people into my home, especially if they have dropped by without advanced notice.

So on that note, and in my continued effort to declutter my house, I did a little project that I really enjoyed and allowed me to organize at least one (very) small part of my life. I organized my makeup drawer!

My new magnetic palette

I was able to take thirteen compacts that I had (see image above) and combine them all into this lovely magnetic palette from Tarte. Most of the small compacts that I had were eyeshadows which my grandmother had given me. She loves Lancôme face cream and would often get the small eyeshadow compacts as a gift with purchase, and would then pass them over to me. I really liked many of the colours that were in these small compacts, but they would hardly get any use because I would have to open every one of them to find the colour I was looking for. So combining them not only took care of the clutter, but it also made the eyeshadows much more accessible and useful!

I watched a few Youtube videos to figure out the best way to get the little eyeshadows out of their existing packaging without breaking them. Most of the videos I watched instructed the viewer to use a straightening iron with a piece of aluminum foil placed over the hot plate, which you would then place the eyeshadow compact on to melt the glue holding the metal pan in place. Well, my question is, why would you do that when you have a perfectly good stovetop downstairs in your kitchen? So I placed a piece of aluminum foil in a pan and heated it on medium low to allow the back of the plastic packaging and the glue inside the packaging to melt just enough that I could poke and pry the shadows out (See photos below). When the back of the packaging was soft I took my pointiest tool and poked through the back and then flipped it over and pried the small metal pan from the compact. This worked like a charm, and I didn’t break a single shadow or powder that I did this with. You will need a few other tools for this as well, and as a sculptor, I happened to have them on hand (see image below). You probably have a few things kicking around your house that you could use. Alternatively you could buy this magnetic palette from Sephora that comes with everything you would need for this little project. You may also want to have a tea towel, an oven mitt and a pair of tongs handy; those little compacts can get hot!

After the powder is out of it’s compact allow it to cool and then you can write the colour name and brand on the back of the pan for future reference. If the pan that the powder is in happens to be a non-magnetic metal you can stick a magnet on the back to allow it to stick in the palette. I had three items that were non-magnetic and I took a flat magnet off my fridge (reminding me to check my smoke alarm batteries, totally not important right?) and cut it up and attached it to the back of those powders, and it seemed to work ok, however I may go and purchase some better magnetic strips at a later date.

The finished product!

I love how this palette turned out! I no longer have to root around in my drawer to find what I am looking for and this palette fit all but one of my pressed powders which is pretty impressive! It will also be great for travel because all my powders are now in one lovely place.

some of the empty containers for the garbage

So if you drop by some time and there are dishes in the sink, books strewn all over the coffee table, and Legos all over the floor just know that I am living my truth 😉 oh and then go look in my makeup drawer, because it is organized!

Are you interested in giving this a try? Let me know in the comments!

ps. it has been a while since my last style post, but fret not! I have one in the works for next week! I promise no more makeup related posts for a while 🙂

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